Save MG Rover

We are amused. ;-)

This is getting way off-topic, but you are dead right about the Henry. Used throughout my kids' uni halls of residence.

I don't believe that Red Robbo made the workforce make shit cars. I believe that Red Robbo encouraged the workforce to make NO cars, whilst demanding ludicrous pay increases for little or no improvement in working practices.

As I've said before, the British are quite often totally uninterested in "work" but are rather fond of "jobs" - where instead of sitting at home and getting a small amount of money, you sit in an office or factory and get a larger amount, but actually doing anything is vaguely optional. An attitude most common in civil service positions with the local council ;)

The paint fell off the SD1, but what about the dreadful fit and finish on cars like the Marina? It wasn't all design faults, or manufacturing faults, or outsourcing faults. It's a bit of everything, and at every stage there is an employee responsible for it.

IMO, Red Robbo made things considerably worse, but he is by no means responsible for the death of Rover - more... let's say it was sick. At the time, you could have killed it or fixed it. The management were slowly getting the hang of fixing it, but then Robbo came along and drained it; took away the workforce and management attention just when it could really have used it.

Richard

The workforce were never at the top of the earnings league, and successive governments had pay and incomes policies that large companies were happy to stick with incomes wise, but moved heaven and hell to ignore prices wise. Once this nonsense was removed by the Thatcher government, industrial relations soon improved as wages found their true norms. Of course the media would have you believe it was controls on the unions that did this, but those controls (secret ballots, etc) made little difference in practice.

That will be why we work the longest hours in Europe?

If parts don't fit, it's down to poor design and manufacture. Not the poor sods trying to stick them together.

The management were hopeless. They squabbled among themselves - there was no overall brand loyalty with them but more a question of protecting their small section of the business at the expense of the rest. And wanted to control the workforce like autocrats rather than work with them for best results.

Good management motivates a workforce as has been known in other countries for years. Poor management thinks it can force it to do their wishes - no matter how ridiculous.

It was somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Howard Rose saying something like:

Oddly, back some 30 years ago, there was a strange feeling of dejavu when working on the Datsun Cherry engine... An A-series as it should have been, would be the way to describe it.

It was a period of rampant inflation and every industry had to adjust. Only BL suffered quite such crippling action, ultimately.

Having the longest working hours doesn't equal working the longest hours. Many jobs, many low-end jobs, are broken down into shifts. We also have pointless working hours in retail, for example - why are stores open 9-5 during the week, when everyone is in offices? Why not open them 7-10, then 4-8?

That's rubbish. The gearlever on our Marina fit just fine. It just wasn't actually fitted to it.

Indeed, but they also had the problem of variable workforce per department. No wonder one division railed against having their manufacturing moved to a different plant when they had perfectly good production facilities, or wanted to avoid relying on another plant's machinery.

Yes. Had they been more forward thinking, BL could have been VAG, but 20 years ahead. I've said this already.

I think that's a matter of perception.

Richard

The Japanese did build the B-series for a while. Exactly the same specification as the British version, but better production and finishing techniques meant that the Japanese B-series was more efficient and had a better power output that the British one!

-- Howard Rose

1966 VW Beetle 1300 Deluxe 1962 Austin Mini Deluxe 1964 Austin Mini Super Deluxe (cars on website)

And not just BL either. I've got a 1994 Mini Tahiti special edition... now that's been really well looked after by one owner and garaged all of it's life. After pressure washing under the wheelarches I was quite amazed to find nothing but primer around the top of the wing where the headlight fits! No paint whatsoever.

-- Howard Rose

1966 VW Beetle 1300 Deluxe 1962 Austin Mini Deluxe 1964 Austin Mini Super Deluxe (cars on website)

1990s Minis are known for this sort of thing - there was a small amount of press concerning the way that the hinges are finished on the bootlid

- the bootlid was painted after the hinges were fitted, resulting in primer or bare metal underneath the external hinges.

Richard

You're joking, surely? Mines, steel, shipyards, etc? Newspapers? The whole country was in a crucible.

I don't know which stores you refer to, but many round here are open well in excess of 7-8. To try and capture working those hours, or more.

That's not quite what you said. However, the dealer was paid to do a pre-sale check, and actually driving the car would have showed this up. As would the most rudimentary checks at the factory. But of course, True Blue Tories would only blame the assembly worker...

So this is the fault of the workforce? Or Red Yobbo?

No - you've said it was down to a poor workforce who didn't give a shit and union organisers. The standard tory tabloid view - which is very far from the case.

Not IMHO. Unless you think the average workman is rubbish. But suddenly, those same workman do well in other car assembly plants in the UK - now foreign owned - where they know how to manage staff.

It's not difficult. I've been doing it for years. I long ago realised properly motivated people - treated as equals, no matter what job they do

- work well and hard. Treat them like serfs and so much rubbish, and they rebel.

I actually had a "Matchbox" 1800 in this Pinninfarina body with BMC on the bonnet - so they did sort of make production!!!

Mike

Mining is and was an unsustainable industry in the UK. Even if there had been resources to mine, even if there hadn't been strikes, all things being equal, EU labour regulations and HSE nonsense would have put paid to it.

Steel, I come from the wrong background to comment on and my opinions will be slanted towards management.

I don't see British Newspapers going out of business, although they are in foreign ownership, the print workers are still scalping us silly (joke!) - the losses have been due to advances in technology. I didn't feel sorry for the typesetters when we bought our first Linotronic, but now we're going straight to plate, I miss the workload I had handling the imagesetter!

Shipyards. I'll give you that one. Just couldn't compete in the end, I suppose.

Going into Edinburgh and being booted out of HMV at 6pm (with an armful of LDs I wanted to buy left behind, just as they were about to ditch them, too).

Er, I haven't specified the assembly worker, I've specified the workforce. That includes the people that check the cars afterwards.

No, I've said it was down to a combination of factors. No-one wanted to accept responsibility for the quality of the finished product, but (IMO) the people who had the ultimate control over what came out of the other end were the people putting it together.

If they went on strike because they weren't allowed to make the cars properly, then perhaps I'd have a little more sympathy.

They didn't do too well at the Peugeot plant, from what I recall...

Unfortunately Red Robbo didn't incite the workers into a dialogue with management about how to improve the company.

Richard

Spend 25 quid more and get Henry's steel-cased cousin Ron, the NVQ250.

Mike Phipps ( snipped-for-privacy@coolmanwithbeard.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

I've got one.

I was around when all that was going on Dave. I know we differ greatly politically, but boy have you got this wrong. :-)

Dyson "design" is more about marketing than usefulness. I hate the Dyson my wife bought - it's not an intuitive piece of kit, but scores more on the marketing pamphlet bullet list for "features". So, it looks funky, modern and bright. Does that mean I can get the darned thing to stretch up stairs properly? Nope.

What does that say about the Brit design side of the operation being somehow superior to the manufacturing side?

£200 Dyson sir? No, I'll have an £20 cheapy from Power Devil and take a chance on it lasting longer than one year. If it doesn't, I'll buy a new one.

Um, "ownership"?

AFAIR it was a strategic _partnership_ and Honda pulled the plug, hence financial stability. I think you'll find that's when BMW stepped in.

Ken Davidson DocDelete

Haha! Good show, I'm looking at one on my shelf right now - scuffed orange paintwork, and buckled wheel to boot! I always thought it was an Citroen until I could read / understand Pininfarina underneath ;-)

However they rot from the other side, since some bright spark at Rover decided to attach the seal to the body, where it traps water against the inside of the bootlid, instead of to the bootlid, where it never caused any problem.